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Spinoza on Intentionality, Materialism, and Mind-Body Relations

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Spinoza on Intentionality, Materialism, and Mind-Body Relations volume 19, no. 43 1. Introduction1 october 2019 Much has been written already about two aspects of Spinoza’s account of the mind-body relation — namely, about his prohibition on causal relations between minds and bodies, and about the identity of certain pairs of minds and bodies. What has been less studied by compari- son is the intentional (‘of’ or ‘about’) relation that, according to Spinoza, Spinoza on Intentionality, every human mind essentially has to some existing human body.2 A prospective investigator might not be encouraged by the fact that Mar- garet Wilson deemed this part of Spinoza’s system “mysterious”, and Jonathan Bennett thought it grounded on “deep” assumptions that Spi- Materialism, and noza “does not discuss” but which simply “cannot be true”.3 The basic aim of this paper is to clarify how Spinoza understands this intentional aspect of the mind-body relation. Mind-Body Relations One of Spinoza’s basic theses is that every durationally existing hu- man mind is essentially an idea of some existing body. So understand- ing the intentional aspect of the mind-body relation will allow us to understand how a human mind comes into durational existence: what is necessary and sufficient for the constitution of a human mind.4 1. For invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this paper, I’m grateful to John Carriero, Olli Koistinen, John Morrison, and Justin Steinberg; to the audiences at UCLA, Yonsei University, and Ghent University; and to the students of the Collegium Spinozanum at the University of Groningen, and of Justin Steinberg’s graduate seminar at CUNY. I rely on the following abbreviations for Spinoza’s works: E=Ethics, Ep=Letters, KV=Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-being, NS=De Nagelate Schriften van B. D. S. (a 1677 Dutch edition of Spinoza’s writings), TIE=Treatise Karolina Hübner on the Emendation of the Intellect. In citing from Ethics I use the follow- University of Toronto ing abbreviations: app=appendix, ax=axiom, c=corollary, def=definition, d=demonstration, pref=preface, p=proposition, s=scholium. 2. Though see Garrett 2008, 2013, 2016; Koistinen 2016. Spinoza himself talks in terms of ideas being “of”, “affirming” or “express- ing” something. An idea “affirms” and “expresses” what it is “of” (cf. Garrett 2009:288). I will sometimes use ‘represent’ as a synonym for Spinoza’s “be an idea of”. Throughout I will also use “concept”, “idea”, and “thought” in- terchangeably. (Throughout I use double quotations marks for citations © 2019 Karolina Hübner from Spinoza and other primary texts; I reserve single quotes for my own This work is licensed under a Creative Commons terminology.) Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License. 3. Wilson 1999:156, Bennett 1984:§37.3. <www.philosophersimprint.org/019043/> 4. In this paper I will not attempt to offer an account of Spinozistic ideas and karolina hübner Spinoza on Intentionality, Materialism, and Mind-Body Relations Prima facie, Spinoza’s view seems to be that human minds exist be- What Spinoza says … is asymmetrical, with the body having primacy.”9 cause their essential intentional objects — human bodies — do. So one In a similar vein, Nadler concludes, of the tasks of the paper will be to determine whether the existence Spinoza does have materialist tendencies insofar as the of an essential intentional relation between human minds and bodies nature of the human mind and its functions are grounded indeed commits Spinoza to an ontological and explanatory dependence in the nature of the human body. Perhaps we can call it an of human minds on bodies,5 and thus to a version of materialism about explanatory materialism, without thereby implying that the human mind.6 Several commentators have drawn precisely this mental phenomena or events are causally explained by conclusion.7 This is how Curley, for example, opens a chapter entitled physical phenomena or events.10 “Spinoza’s Materialism”: Finally, here is Koistinen: it is the essence of the human mind to be related to some- thing else …. Its essence is to be an idea of that exist- that thinking does not produce objects of its own is a ing body. If we conceive of it as being capable of exist- fundamental feature in Spinoza’s philosophy of mind. … ing apart, we must be conceiving of it inadequately. … To Any idea of an object of an attribute X is ontologically de- understand the mind we must understand the body. … In pendent on the attribute of X. … [I]deas are individuated spite of all the parallelistic talk, the order of understand- through their other-attribute objects.11 ing never proceeds from mind to body.8 So understood, Spinoza fundamentally disagrees with Descartes that Likewise, Bennett notes that what Spinoza endorses is not a “mere par- we can conceive of ourselves as thinking things without also, and in- allelism, a matching of facts about the body with facts about the mind. deed more fundamentally, conceiving of something extended.12 Call such readings of Spinoza’s account of the human mind ‘Materialist Readings’. As we shall see in what follows, prima facie at least, Materialist intentionality in general, but restrict myself to what is essential to a human Readings find plenty of quite straightforward textual support. One mind. may of course also have independent reasons for cheering on Spino- 5. By ‘explain’ I will mean throughout ‘provide adequate (veridical) cognition’. I will use the locutions ‘minds depend on bodies’ and ‘mental properties za’s apparent recognition that there can be no human mind without a depend on physical properties’ interchangeably, since, in Spinoza’s ontology, brain. Nonetheless, what I want to show in what follows is that once minds are also properties (of substance). 6. Spinoza has been characterized as a “materialist” also for other reasons; 9. Bennett 1984:§30. here I’m interested in this assessment only insofar as it hinges on a mind’s intentional relation to a body. 10. Nadler 2008:597, italics in the original. Nadler is discussing E2p13s and E5p39s but interprets the dependence expressed therein as grounded in 7. See e.g. Ayers 2007:76; Barker 1938:159; Bennett 1984:§30.2; Curley 1988:74– “parallelism” (586). However, both passages describe the mind’s intentional 5, 78; Koistinen 2009:168–9, 182; Malinowski-Charles 2010:126; Matson relation to a body (in E2p14, which grounds E539s via E4p338, it is a question 1971:577; Nadler 2008:597; Rice (Spinoza endorses a “representational de- of what the mind “perceives”). pendence” of minds on bodies; “The content of an idea is a relation which it has to noncognitive entities” [1999:41–2]); D. Steinberg 2000:35–6. 11. Koistinen 2016:§1. 8. Curley 1988:74–5, 78. 12. Cf. Ayers 2007:76. philosophers’ imprint – 2 – vol. 19, no. 43 (october 2019) karolina hübner Spinoza on Intentionality, Materialism, and Mind-Body Relations we take a more comprehensive view of Spinoza’s philosophy, Materi- is that, pace Materialism, such appeals should not be understood as alist Readings begin to lose their plausibility. This is because they vio- references to a non-mental reality.14 Instead, they should be under- late several fundamental commitments of Spinoza’s metaphysics and stood as references to the body as represented, the immanent essential epistemology. In particular, such readings violate two basic constraints intentional object of the human mind (or, to use Spinoza’s Scholastic Spinoza places on all possible cognition:13 one, that cognition be of a terminology, the body as “objectively real”). So understood, Spinoza’s thing’s causes, and two, that only like things can explain — give cogni- account of the human mind does not commit him to an explanatory tion of — one another, such that only ideas can explain ideas, only bod- or ontological dependence of minds on some extra-mental reality, and ies can explain bodies, etc. By suggesting that human minds depend thus also does not undermine his larger epistemological and meta- for their existence and explanation on bodies, Materialist Readings physical commitments. violate both of these commitments. As this suggests, what is at stake in investigating the essential in- 2. Spinoza on human minds tentionality of human minds is thus not merely the details of Spinoza’s In this section I want to lay out the background material necessary for understanding of mind-body relations, but also the internal consisten- us to properly understand Spinoza’s account of the essential constitu- cy of his philosophical system: arguably the most natural and preva- tion of the human mind. There are five doctrines especially salient to lent interpretation of his account of the essential constitution of the such an inquiry. Some of these are general metaphysical and episte- human mind sits uneasily with his larger philosophical commitments. mological principles; others are claims specifically about the human This is despite the fact that “cognition of the human mind” is a stated mind. There exists a rough scholarly consensus about all these doc- goal of Spinoza’s entire undertaking in the Ethics (E2pref). trines, and for the purposes of this paper I will for the most part simply Let me say a few words about how this paper is organized. I begin assume them as given, without offering any justification for them or with a brief review of the most relevant background commitments of entering into detailed discussion.15 Spinoza’s philosophy of mind (§2). Next, I examine arguments in fa- Here is the first doctrine: vor of Materialist Readings of Spinoza’s position (§3). I conclude that, (1) Reduction: Minds are just more or less complex ideas.16 despite their prima facie plausibility, such readings must ultimately be rejected, on the grounds of their incompatibility with Spinoza’s basic In other words, there is nothing more to a Spinozistic “mind” than epistemological and metaphysical commitments (§4).
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